Technology has forced us to “get found” by customers versus interrupting them. The traditional rules of marketing are dead. It no longer matters what you say…it’s what others are saying about you. Customers are no longer listening to sales reps, reading spam messages, or watching television advertisements. They’re using search engines to shop and gather information. The only way to stand out in this day in age is to match the way you market your products with the way your prospects learn about and shop for your products.

Technology, with internet and mobile devices created a more active audiance. I think brands should reposition themselves for this new era and stop spamming to this conscious audiance.

Brands have to create unique content (such as sharing know-how about your sector, technological edges your company is built-on or any other area that you can put a difference) that might address to a small group of people (even only nerds sometimes) and create a dedicated fan community. From there on, that fan community will help you to share the word.

Instead of publishing banners and spending big amounts for SEO (altough that might work for some cases) sponsoring an online community related to your brand is much more effectve.

Make applications to solve a specific problem of your customers, publish educative videos your audiance might be interested, make games that they will play, sponsor online communities.

I think that technology has widened opportunities available to companies to engage with their prospects and customers. Technology hasn’t meant that other forms of engagement have become obsolete, rather, it is another platform to communicate.

I recently wrote a blog article that addresses one aspect of this (see link below), but the gist of it is that social media is the new word of mouth and websites are an extension of that. Social media is how you and others spread the word about your business/organization and spark some interest and your website is what gives people enough information to make the decision to contact or buy from you.

Technology change is not a new thing anymore – we now expect that it’ll change ALL the time.

Therefore, staying on top of it is key, but staying on top of it for your (or your customer’s) specific industry technology is the master key. Then use this info to create content that your customer can engage WITH – e.g. if you’re in the shopping / design, use Fab.com, Pinterest.com and the ShopCatch app to write an article about trends in your industry.

I am of the opinion that technology (and I’m referring specifically to the internet) has “robbed” sales professionals of their traditional, historical function: product education.

Back then, potential buyers didn’t know anything about the product they were going to buy: sales people used to call on buyers and provide a comprehensive technical education.

Things are very different now: most of the times the potential buyer has already conducted a comprehensive research about the products available on the market; today potential buyers know a lot more than they used to know years ago.

By involuntarily raising the technical knowledge bar, current potential buyers have determined the implicit need of extremely competent sales people… so, from a different angle, the first big change in terms of customer engagement is represented by a significant increase in the overall technical “quality” of the sales characters.

The other side of the coin is tricky: because of the internet and the immediate availability of tons of information about pretty much any given product, potential buyers usually “assume” that they are educated and/or proficient about the product and its application; most of the times – they think they know everything… but in reality they really don’t.

This the second big change in terms of customer engagement: sales people must be skilled and/or sensitive enough to be able to deal with counterparts who are very opinionated without sounding presumptuous or,even worse, arrogant.

I honestly believe that the typical “pat on the shoulder”-type sales guy is dead: modern sales, including the initial engagement require an extremely knowledgeable, analytic, diagnostic approach.

Overall, I believe this a quantum-leap improvement in terms of general quality of the process and, more in general, of the service rendered to the market.

The most extraordinary change in customer engagement is the ability for even a small business to finely segment their entire prospect funnel and customer list. There’s no excuse for not precisely tailoring business engagement to the needs of each customer. The link below describes why you might want to fire your IT provider if your technology doesn’t “move the needle” on customer engagement metrics.

You can get upclose without getting too personal, engaged without being overly committed and interactive without being intrusive. The best thing is you can be talking the same language to someone who is miles away from you in person.

Technology on the whole is offering businesses of all shapes and sizes an array of options that can help engage their customers, creating big impact with a lasting impression. Technology can help initiate conversations, making businesses more transparent and consumers feel more in touch with a brand/product/service.

Needless to say, technology is not enough by itself to ‘engage’ and I fear that some businesses often rely on this. Developments in technology may offer new outlets in order to communicate but the way in which we, the public do so, is exactly the same as what we’ve done for years. I am a technology advocate but businesses, marketers and agencies should know that technology is nothing without a great story teller behind it.

To be engaging you must create something others want to be part of. Technology simply offers a greater choice for businesses, marketers and agencies to deliver that message.

Technology today offers a much liberal space to customers where they can freely interact and discuss about the products and services. Traditional marketing and advertising channels that could only allow one-way messages are almost dead now!! I had written a blog post sometime back. Hope you may find it useful 🙂

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A recent study from LogMeIn found customer care organisations are leveraging online technologies to improve customer satisfaction. With the rise of online retailing, more companies are deploying live chat and social media to provide superior customer service, as well as mobile solutions to remain competitive in the retail industry.

DealExtreme, which recently opened new warehouses in the U.K., Australia and the United States, recently upgraded its order processing methods to improve buyer satisfaction on its online store. The retailer created a new processing system with upgraded order management and warehouse management systems that are able to process larger amounts of orders more efficiently.